New Azzurri boss restructures management roles

Mark Quartermaine, incoming CEO at networking and comms integrator Azzurri, has shuffled senior management and made a series of new appointments, with some personnel, prominent among them sales director Jason Standerwick, leaving the firm.

Quartermaine, who was unveiled as CEO in July and formally took up the post in September, has appointed John Cruickshank, formally sales boss at Hughes Europe, to head up the newly formed Specialist Solutions and Major Bids team.

Meanwhile, former Vodafone corporate sales head Craig Wellman is to take up the role of business development director at the Surrey-based firm.

Within the business, head of mobility Martin Flick now becomes director of mobility and converged solutions and regional sales boss Jonathan Arnold moves to head up the Azzurri's Account Management team.

The Products and Services Group and Operations team will now be overseen by the newly-created post of operations director, which is to be filled by Product and Service Group director Steve Clark.

Speaking to MicroScope Quartermaine claimed that Azzurri's acquisition spree - it bought 16 firms between 2000 and 2007 - had enabled the firm to build a networking portfolio that competitors, such as Daisy Group and Alternative Networks, could not yet match.

"The acquisitions delivered capability in voice, data centres, call centres and mobility. Some of our competitors have some, but not all of those capabilities," said Quartermaine.

"The plan is for the company to get back on the organic growth path from a sales and margin point of view," he added. "My next move is to rationalise our portfolio and start expanding it into the cloud."

Azzurri's most recent set of annual results for the 12 months to 30 June 2009 showed sales up 2.3% to £149.5m and profits of just over £6m.

This week, IndependenceIT unveiled the 4.0 version of Cloud Workspace Suite, which features a number of enhancements; Knowledge Vault launched a partner program for its cloud-based analytics-as-a-service platform; and more.

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